If your question begins with "What is....", don't call the lab, google it.

[Laboratorian]

---

Members don't see this ad.

I promise you. That is all I'm going to do is google it.

I am not a human medical encyclopedia. There are hundreds of bacterial and fungal infections out there and I do not know the pathophysiology or treatment recommendations for all of them.

Just google it.

The clinical reference material that you ask me to fax you....I googled that.
It came off medscape.com or doctorfungus.com. I know your office has internet access.

What is Trichosporon species?
Google it?

What is bacillus species?
Google it.

What is lacto bacillus?
STOP. That is normal vaginal flora. Do not treat.

Well WTF is normal vaginal flora?
Please go back to medical school.

Why do I only have 4 drugs for enterococcus species?
Jesus take the wheel.......

 

[wholeheartedly]

As a fellow lab rat, I think it's a bad idea to give clinicians a reason to avoid calling us. I worked in the blood bank and there were numerous times when I found myself wishing they'd just called and asked and we could've saved everyone a headache and not delayed patient care.

Yes, I got some questions that made me raise my eyebrows ("what do you mean my patient has a positive antibody screen? like she's Rh positive? can we just give O neg" or "can we save the patient a stick and draw the peak and trough drug levels at the same time?" )


But I'd rather get those kinds of questions than have docs who either think we are just high school grads who don't know anything or that we are a pain to talk to because they don't remember everything from medical school. Most of my colleagues in any of the labs I worked at felt the same.

Questions? As long as you aren't planning on yelling just call, we'll help if we know it, direct you elsewhere if you don't.

 

[shadowfox87]

lol, OP, I completely agree. I hate when people use me as google when they can look it up themselves. Sometimes I just copy paste the google website as the answer for them.

 

[K31]

Sometimes I just copy paste the google website as the answer for them.

lmgtfy.com can be used to add that extra special little bit of snark when you do this.

 

[willen101383]

Fellow MT ASCP here. Agreed. Before med school I was a blood baker for 2 years. So many questions non stop..from nursing...from docs. Ugh.

The patient is O Pos why are you giving me AB POS FFP?

I think my patient is having a transfusion reaction..how do I know?

What do I need to order for X test?

I sometimes miss the lab but I glad to have moved on!!!

 

[sirenomelia]

Fellow MT ASCP here. Agreed. Before med school I was a blood baker for 2 years. So many questions non stop..from nursing...from docs. Ugh.

The patient is O Pos why are you giving me AB POS FFP?

I think my patient is having a transfusion reaction..how do I know?

What do I need to order for X test?

I sometimes miss the lab but I glad to have moved on!!!

Was that shop next to the Dung Deli or nearer to the CSF cafe? 😎

 

[Siverhideo1985]

lol.

use this: http://lmgtfy.com/

 

[MintChocolateChip83]

lol i try to remember the days when i wasnt annoyed by questions people could find on google. it's definitely harder now that its like my biggest pet peeve

 

[HondoCrouch]

I promise you. That is all I'm going to do is google it.

I am not a human medical encyclopedia. There are hundreds of bacterial and fungal infections out there and I do not know the pathophysiology or treatment recommendations for all of them.

Just google it.

The clinical reference material that you ask me to fax you....I googled that.
It came off medscape.com or doctorfungus.com. I know your office has internet access.

What is Trichosporon species?
Google it?

What is bacillus species?
Google it.

What is lacto bacillus?
STOP. That is normal vaginal flora. Do not treat.

Well WTF is normal vaginal flora?
Please go back to medical school.

Why do I only have 4 drugs for enterococcus species?
Jesus take the wheel.......

Your status says student.

When your paycheck depends on someone choosing to send labwork to your lab, you will change your tune.

Any attitude at all from someone I send path to, I will send my business elsewhere.

You might as well change your tune now unless you plan on spending your career in a government institution with no accountability or concern for business.

 

[Laboratorian]

^^^^I am a working student. 😉

I'm sorry I just had to vent. Just because you are a MD doesn't mean you are a genius. There are no dumb question in medicine. If someone doesn't know something, it is best to ask.

But some of these questions seriously make me want to say WT😱?

I purposely turn up the sarcasm when I say "Hmmmm, hold one moment while I google that for you." I repeatedly tell them that the FREE reference material that I am using comes from http://emedicine.medscape.com/
My phone is literally ringing off the hook with google requests.

Then god forbid I use big words like pathogenic or sporulate.

As for spending my career in a government institution.....the day the CDC or VA calls me for an interview I will shout in tongues and burst out in a Holy Ghost dance.

 

[mvenus929]

I worked in the lab as a phleb tech for a while before med school. We'd frequently get calls from nurses or unit secretaries about some really random stuff. And many times, I wondered what the heck was going through their heads.

But then I got to medical school and realized how poorly laboratory stuff is taught. I mean, we've learned what an ammonia level can tell us, but no one bothered to mention that it's placed on ice immediately and has to be run within 30 minutes of being drawn. Or that a PT and a CMP can't be run on the same blood because they require different processing.

I'd like to think my classmates, at least those that I have small group with, know more than the average physician, but considering how rarely it comes up, I don't think it'll stick so much for them.

 

[willen101383]

I worked in the lab as a phleb tech for a while before med school. We'd frequently get calls from nurses or unit secretaries about some really random stuff. And many times, I wondered what the heck was going through their heads.

But then I got to medical school and realized how poorly laboratory stuff is taught. I mean, we've learned what an ammonia level can tell us, but no one bothered to mention that it's placed on ice immediately and has to be run within 30 minutes of being drawn. Or that a PT and a CMP can't be run on the same blood because they require different processing.

I'd like to think my classmates, at least those that I have small group with, know more than the average physician, but considering how rarely it comes up, I don't think it'll stick so much for them.

There really should be a lecture or two on labs. But then again this is how we look good on the wards while everyone else has a learning curve 😉

 

[willen101383]

Was that shop next to the Dung Deli or nearer to the CSF cafe? 😎

ahhhhhhhhh baNker 🙂

 

[astrocreep96]

I promise you. That is all I'm going to do is google it.

I am not a human medical encyclopedia. There are hundreds of bacterial and fungal infections out there and I do not know the pathophysiology or treatment recommendations for all of them.

Just google it.

The clinical reference material that you ask me to fax you....I googled that.
It came off medscape.com or doctorfungus.com. I know your office has internet access.

What is Trichosporon species?
Google it?

What is bacillus species?
Google it.

What is lacto bacillus?
STOP. That is normal vaginal flora. Do not treat.

Well WTF is normal vaginal flora?
Please go back to medical school.

Why do I only have 4 drugs for enterococcus species?
Jesus take the wheel.......

It's probably so if a lawsuit comes back their way, they have someone else to assume liability.

Google "malpractice defense attorney in my area."

 

[SoDakMLS]

It is a HUGE advantage for a physician/nurse/pharmacist to have worked as a phlebo, lab/medical assistant, PCT, etc. because you actually have some idea how the system actually works.

My MT background has been helpful for other students in med school because I can explain the lab results that they give with our clinical vignettes. But yeah, in the distant future when I am a physician I will benefit from knowing how variables in specimen collection or quality can mess with results and when to question them.

My silly question anecdote from a resident was "Yeah, I have a patient that could use a blood transfusion, but they're a Jehova's witness. Do you have any synthetic blood down there we could give instead?" Yeah, I'll let you have some after I've collected my Nobel prize...

 

[sirdude]

OP, I generally agree but please, please don't just "google" it and use crap websites like wikipedia. Download a reference to your smart phone or just stick some references in your pockets for common themes. You remind me of patients that come into the doctor's office with Webmd printouts saying they have a that disease.

 

[littlealex]

OP, I generally agree but please, please don't just "google" it and use crap websites like wikipedia. Download a reference to your smart phone or just stick some references in your pockets for common themes. You remind me of patients that come into the doctor's office with Webmd printouts saying they have a that disease.

Wait wait wait, am I the only one who thinks Wikipedia is awesome?

Lastly speaking from the perspective of a student, I feel that not knowing PT and CMP can't be drawn in the same tube isn't all that unusual. Physicians rarely have to draw their own labs nowadays. Of course we should still know most of this stuff, but sometimes it gets lost. I think that's understandable.

Not knowing the ~10 drugs to treat enterococcus, however, is not excusable. Thank god for the Sanford guide.